what's a good sound card?

[DDRPIP]

What is the best, affordable... sound card that can support surround sound?
I need a new sound card and speakers cuase mine are about 3 years old...heh i just got a new computer, and I'm getting a radeon 9600xt with 256MB so i need a good sound card too

[gandalf]

9600 with 256MB LOL!

better with 128MB, 256 it´s waste of memory and money (for the 9600XT).

anyway, back to topic, a creative audigy2 it´s fine

[DDRPIP]

really well allright, havent bot the 264mb yet so ill take your advice, heh
thanks dude
Edit:XD not 264..omg..funny 256
do you mean the Creative Labs SoundBlaster Audigy 2?

[Clements]

I have an Audigy 2 ZS and it serves me well. The X-Fi XtremeMusic is the best buy out of the X-Fi series if you want to spend a little more.

[DDRPIP]

thanks man I'll go with Audigy 2 ZS

[tailslol]

got sound blaster live 5.1 on my old pc and it work well on the other twoo i got realtek ac97 7.1 sound and its not so bad but saturday ill got my 20" imac and it got an optical out for 5.1 sound but dont got something with an optical in XD

[Vanit]

I can't tell the difference between performance in cards unless I'm comparing midis. D:

[Gox777]

Yea if you want something affordable, I'd say just get a Soundblaster Live 24 Bit.
$25 on Newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102176
Works fine for me.

Although I would like to try an X-FI card sometime :p

[DDRPIP]

uh, you sure its good? i mean cause $25 doesnt seem like much

[Gox777]

It doesn't cause the kind of reaction like "ZOMG AWESOME", but it's just as good if not better than onboard sound. I've never had any kind of cracking sounds or other weird problems with it, and it's still made by creative so thats good.

[DDRPIP]

allright well Im going to a friends so I'll check on it later, once again gox youre awesome XD
also my computer is now back to normal, except some fragmented programs i need to get rid of..
cya

[iriedaily]

if you got good headphones/speakers, go for the audigy 2(zs)/4. its worth the few pennies more.

[Turgo]

Sound card eh? well heres my advice.
dont go with the Soundblaster Live 24 Bit, The Live series had all kinds of problems with windows xp and various motherboards. I should know I owned a Sounblaster live valu card. The cheapest card that I would ever recomend is the Turtle Beach Rivera. I consider that the bottom on terms of whats good. As for a realy good card I recomend the Creatives Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS.

Here are my reasons.
1. Its THX certified! So it has to sound good. You will hear things that you didnt on most other sounds cards, even on the Rivera card this has 2 to 3 times better sound quality.
2. It 24 bit capable, and it suports up to 7.1 surround, can you say over kill!
3. It seem to be the best card for the price.
Thats it.
unless you want to get the X-fi card. with is a little better, but costs more x-fi is basicly the Audigy Zs2 with a few more studio and recording features.

Btw Dont get anything on it that says Value.
Here are the newegg.com links/reviews, and prices
Audigy Zs 2 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102178)
Rivera (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829118103)

[but2002]

May Be Ridiculusly Expensive, But Ive seen it in action, THis baby has some fuckin power!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102191R

[DDRPIP]

..shit.. 320 bucks?! well...itll last me a while so I'll have to save up till November (i get 750 then)

Edit:
Turgo is that the card you were talking about or the one in your post thats like $26?
cause thats a turtle Beach Rivera?cuase thats a huge difference...doesnt sound that good if it's only $26

[Mütze]

I recently bought a Audigy 4:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102004

Even though it is 'only' the internal version, it is almost perfectly shielded against interference from other PC components. I have it connected to a Hifi system and the sound is awesome. Absolutely NO background noise is audible, no matter how high I dare turn the volume without any sounds playing. The digital-analog conversion keeps all the information intact, so your mp3s have never sounded crisper. :D

7.1 support, up to 192 kHz / 24 bit resolution, and (if you're a musician ;)) ASIO with latencies below 3 ms.

It is, however quite poorly equipped with anything else than 3.5mm jack plug exits for the speakers, line in and mic in. No gameport, no MIDI in, no SPDIF connectors (neither TOSLINK nor RCA), no USB or FireWire. You get all those with the Pro version, which costs four times as much.

[DDRPIP]

Wow I think I'll go with Audigy 4
my friend'll like it cuase hes a great guitar player so yeah that works..
thanks Mutze
cya

[legend of zelda]

um, this may be a little late to post this, but if you've got the money, i'd go with something of the x-fi series. i got this sweet deal on newegg.com a while ago, x-fi fatal1ty for 199.99 no tax, free shipping. the deal's probably over by now, but it's a kick ass sound card. i get better frame rates in my pc games and i can put the sound setting on ultra high or whatever in them. it's got a lot of other cool features too, you should look at them at newegg or the creative website. hehe, actually i just looked on newegg, that deal is still there on the x-fi fatal1ty, it's $80 off the normal $280 price tag. i'd say it's probly better than the audigy 4, but i cant really say since i've never owned one. so, either the x-fi fatal1ty or platinum would be a good choice. i'd get the fatal1ty though since there's a good deal on it right now and it's only $20 more than the platinum. i'm pretty sure the only difference between the fatal1ty and platinum is the fatal1ty has the 64MB of x-ram, which not many games support right now though. dont get the xtreme music or the elite one though. the xtreme music one only comes with the software for music and stuff, so if your gonna play games with it, it's pretty much useless, and the elite just isnt worth the money cause you wont see any performance gains with it and it costs so much more. so yeah, go with the fatal1ty, or the platinum if you dont have the dough or the deal expires before you buy it. here's a link to the fatal1ty on sale at newegg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102189

[Toasty]

Kinda wondering why this thread is in the hi-res textures forum... :huh:

[Clements]

dont get the xtreme music or the elite one though. the xtreme music one only comes with the software for music and stuff, so if your gonna play games with it, it's pretty much useless

Nope. The XtremeMusic only lacks X-RAM, I/O Hub, Remote Control and some software. Otherwise it is the same as the other models, so the gaming difference is effectively nil.

[legend of zelda]

Nope. The XtremeMusic only lacks X-RAM, I/O Hub, Remote Control and some software. Otherwise it is the same as the other models, so the gaming difference is effectively nil.
well, that's mostly true, but that "some software" that it's missing would have an impact on gaming with newer games, but you can still game with it, so it's not completely useless in games. i'm sure you know this already, but with the x-fi's with the complete software package you have 3 different modes to choose from for doing specific tasks, and they are entertainment mode, gaming mode, and audio creation mode. and i'm to understand the xtreme music card only comes with the entertainment mode, and some other software is missing too. it doesnt seem like this would matter, but when i play newer games with my fatal1ty in entertainment mode, it wont let me put the sound setting to the highest. 2 examples would be battlefield 2 and prey. in bf2 it will only let me put the sound settings to ultra high when im in gaming mode, and in prey i can only use the openAL drivers in gaming mode. god i hope this isn't a problem only i'm having, and you actually can do this stuff while in entertainment mode. anyways, i guess before i was just trying to say the xtreme music card lacks many good hardware and software features that the others have, it just didn't come out right.

[Clements]

i'm sure you know this already, but with the x-fi's with the complete software package you have 3 different modes to choose from for doing specific tasks, and they are entertainment mode, gaming mode, and audio creation mode. and i'm to understand the xtreme music card only comes with the entertainment mode, and some other software is missing too.

Where did you hear this? The X-Fi XtremeMusic offers Gaming Mode, Entertainment Mode and Audio Creation Mode as standard like the entire X-Fi line. The missing software that is included with the Elite Pro only are all to do with content creation and not gaming.

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=14066

[mongo51983]

Um.....not to be mean but what does this topic have to do with high res texture projects?

[legend of zelda]

Where did you hear this? The X-Fi XtremeMusic offers Gaming Mode, Entertainment Mode and Audio Creation Mode as standard like the entire X-Fi line. The missing software that is included with the Elite Pro only are all to do with content creation and not gaming.

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=14066

hehe, yeah i figured you were right about it, your never wrong. i could've sworn i read something like that in a magazine a month or so before the x-fi's came out though. maybe i did and they were wrong about it, or maybe it never happened at all, who cares. well, i guess those last few posts i was just ranting on about nothing then. at least i managed to make myself look like a dumbass..... again.

and mongo51983, your right, this should be in talk of the town or tech talk or something.

[SlimickGamer]

Um.....not to be mean but what does this topic have to do with high res texture projects?

Yeah! What does this topic have to do with High resolution textures projects?

Someone should move this topic so people wouldn't get confused. :bouncy: